Katherine Garbera - His Sweet Revenge

“I want a companion.”

“There’s more to life than bed.” Their thoughts had been traveling along very similar paths.

“I said a companion, not a bed warmer. I like talking business with you. It’s stimulating.”

She grinned, a naughty gleam in her dark eyes. “I’ve never had my opinions described that way before.”

“They’re that, too,” he said, easily sliding into the game. “You’re the first woman to turn me on while talking about the merits of on-site employee day care.”

She laughed, the sound warm and inviting. “What else?”

“Children. I want a family. I’ve built an empire I have no desire to leave it to some hospital who will build a wing with my name on it.” As he said the words, he realized how true they were.

Why not Tara as the mother to his children?

He certainly had no illusion about falling madly in love and living happily ever after with some dream woman. And he’d be destroying his enemy in the process.

She nodded, looking thoughtful. “So you see marriage as pretty much permanent.”

“Don’t you?”

“Yes. The worst part about growing up was the upheaval every time one of Mom’s boyfriends left. I won’t put my children through it. I want a marriage that is going to last.”

“Ditto.”

She smiled at that, but didn’t say anything else and they walked along the shoreline for several minutes, the call of seagulls and the surf the only sounds around them.

Then she stopped abruptly and leaned down to pick up a red bucket some child must have left behind. She looked at it as if the bright plastic somehow held the answers of the universe.

She turned and tugged his hand. “Come on.”

“Where?”

“I want to build a sand castle.” She led him to the spot where the sand was still wet but no longer brushed by waves from the outgoing tide.

Stunned, he just stared at her when she plopped down to her knees and started scooping damp sand into the bucket.

She peeked up at him, her eyes wide behind her sunglasses. “Are you going to help?”

“Why?”

“Why help or why build?”

“Why build?”

She shrugged. “I’ve always wanted to build one and I never have.”

“Never?”

“I grew up in the Midwest. I didn’t even see the ocean until I started taking modeling jobs that required travel. I moved to Portland for Primo Tech, but I’ve spent most of my life living in land-bound states.”

If someone had told him that seducing a former model included building a sand castle, he would have dismissed the idea as nonsense.

“Come on,” she cajoled, “don’t be a spoil sport. If you can build companies, you can build one small sand castle.”

It didn’t turn out that small. She wanted turrets and a moat, as well as a courtyard and a castle that any royal family would be proud to live in.

It took them two hours to complete. When they were done, she sat back on her haunches and surveyed their handiwork with satisfaction. “Very nice.”

“It looks formidable.”

“Like a princess could live protected behind its walls all the days of her life.” A strange expression shot through her brown eyes. “But it’s only sand. Just like most fantasies in life, it looks great, but it won’t survive the incoming tide.”

“Not all dreams disappear when tested by reality.”

“Most of mine have.”

“What kind of dreams?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I was going to grow up and be a supermodel.”

“You were very successful.”

“But no Cindy Crawford.”

“Why would you want to be anyone else?”

She laughed at that. “It’s a girl thing.”

“What other dreams got washed away on an outbound tide?”

She sighed and then sat back on her already sand covered bottom, her gaze fixed on the castle. “When I was a little girl, I dreamed of having a family. By the time Darren came along, I no longer trusted the dream.” She fiddled with one of the sticks they’d discarded as too crooked to stand atop the turrets as a flagpole. “I’d moved out before I accepted he wasn’t going to.”

“But he didn’t.”

“No. He stayed with Mom, but then I made the mistake of dreaming of my own future with a man I loved. It took almost two years, but eventually I realized that whole Prince Charming fantasy was just that. It was no more real than this.” She pointed to the molded turrets and empty moat.

“What exactly are you saying?” Did she want to avoid marriage altogether?

Now that he’d decided it would be the best form of revenge and that marrying her wouldn’t exactly be a hardship, he would not accept a refusal.

She looked at him then, her dark gaze intense. “I’m not looking for love and a perfect happily ever after anymore.”

“And yet you are hesitant to marry me. Why?”

“I need to know that what we have is more than a sand castle on the beach.”

“How many years was Darren your stepfather before you moved out?”

“Six.”

“You spent six years wondering if he was real…you could spend just as long wondering about me, but I am real and so is my proposal.”

Then he did what he was best at and kissed her slightly parted lips.

Angelo’s mouth took possession of hers as he dragged Tara into his lap.

And that fast, she was lost. It all felt so incredibly right. The heat of his body against hers, his uniquely masculine scent surrounding her and the spicy warmth of his mouth both comforted and enticed her. The feel of his rock hard muscles holding her gave her a primitive sense of security no modern woman would admit to.

As much as her mind told her attraction to this man spelled danger in capital letters, her body responded to his as if she’d found the other half of her whole. The half she hadn’t known was missing until this very moment.

She wanted to dismiss such thoughts as juvenile and fanciful, but they permeated her being with rock solid staying power. Her soul knew this man.

Hard, mobile lips molded hers perfectly and with just the right amount of pressure that she moaned under the onslaught to her senses.

He growled in response to the sound, his hand gripping her waist tightly. She felt like she was being kissed by a wild predator claiming his mate, not a refined businessman. She responded on a level she had never allowed herself to explore before, digging her fingertips into his shoulders and reveling in the leashed power she sensed there.

He lifted her by the waist, repositioning her so she straddled his hips and their torsos were pressed close together. She could feel the threat of his hardness against her most sensitive flesh and the layers of clothes between them did nothing to negate the heat that connection generated.

Jolts of sensual awareness rippled through her body, making her arch toward him and shudder while his lips continued to entice her passion to greater heights.

Suddenly his thumb brushed upward from where his big hand rested against the indentation of her waist. It caressed her in an up and down motion, teasing at her rib cage just below her breasts before dipping down over the curve of her hip.

Her breath suspended in her chest as she waited for him to explore further, to actually touch swollen flesh chafing at the restrictions of her bra. But he didn’t and she found herself breaking her lips from his to suck in much needed oxygen.

“Angelo,” she panted.

She didn’t know what else she wanted to say, couldn’t form a cohesive thought to save her life.

His hands curved around her in a hold so possessive, she gasped. “This thing between us is good. Don’t dismiss it, stellina.”

She had no answer, so she remained silent.

He kissed her temple and then the corner of her mouth as if he couldn’t help himself before guiding them both to their feet. She dusted the sand from her clothes and her legs, while he pulled something small from his pocket.